Basketball has emerged as the fastest growing major sport in the United States. A recent study indicated that more than 46 million Americans played basketball at least once in 1996. The sport is seeing similar growth and popularity outside the United States as well. Many are serious players; almost 13 million Americans played basketball more than 50 times in 1996.
About 30% of the points scored in a basketball game are scored from the foul-line. Most close games are won or lost at the foul line. There exists a need for devices which can help a player improve foul-shooting.
A variety of basketball-related devices is available. This variety is illustrated in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 1,765,269, 3,233,896, 3,342,486, 3,776,550, 3,814,421, 3,901,506, 3,917,263, 3,913,916, 4,291,885, 4,579,339, 4,579,340, 4,667,957, 4,678,189, 4,697,810, 4,706,954, 4,714,248, 4,720,101, 4,786,053, 4,786,371, 4,836,539, 4,838,549, 4,869,502, 4,936,577, 4,955,605, 5,016,875, 5,060,940, 5,098,090, 5,129,648, 5,133,546, 5,165,680, 5,171,009, 5,184,814, 5,273,275, 5,308,059, 5,312,099, 5,348,290, 5,368,292, 5,409,211, 5,507,483, 5,540,428, 5,692,976.
The various prior art devices have numerous drawbacks. Many of the devices return the ball to the player only if the basketball goes through the basketball hoop. Other devices are constructed whereby the netting does not permit the basketball player to have a clear line-of-sight to the basketball rim, it being necessary for the player to look through the netting to see the rim and to arch the ball above the netting in order to have the basketball go through the hoop. Almost all of the prior art devices require an existing basketball rim and backboard arrangement, whereby the devices are adaptable to such existing backboard and rims. As a result, valuable court-space must be taken up in order to practice basketball free-throw shooting. Another drawback of many of the prior art devices is that their assembly is complex, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to easily collapse the basketball-retrieval devices into a compact storage position.